The Worst Book of All by Hayden

The Worst Book of All by Hayden - July 2013 Scholarship Essay

              I wish I’d never picked up the book, much less read it.
             At first, when the light volume landed in my grasp, my conniving teenage mind smirked at the ease with which my peers and I would whiz through this sliver of prose. We had braved the murky swampland of Pride and Prejudice; what were 109 pages? But I was naïve. We all were. The unspoken fact of the matter is that, though we may try in vain, we cannot judge a book by its cover. The cover is but a veil, a dim shade, of what lies within. As I soon discovered, 109 pages of unfiltered truth can do damage enough to last a lifetime. Elie Wiesel’s Night is the worst book I have ever read for school, and yet it is the best, because, although it ravaged my then innocent mind, it ensured that I will not forget, and never repeat, the injustices and transgressions of the Holocaust.
             There are a number of aspects that make Night so profound.
             First and foremost is the memoir aspect of the book. “Never shall I forget that night…which has turned my life into one long night”(32), Wiesel writes, a statement that, to varying degrees, transfers to the reader as they undergo the horrors of the German concentration camp along with teenage Wiesel, as all that he loves and clings is savagely and systematically wrenched away from him.To read an emotionally gripping novel is one thing. But to scour the pages of a life is a completely different matter. The agony we feel as Wiesel’s mother and daughter are swept up into the Birkenau crowd, never to be seen again, the smokestack in the distance chugging out its infernal ashes of humanity, is a glimpse at Wiesel’s own pain. The dreadful imagery, peppered throughout the book like bomb blasts, present horrific snapshots from Wiesel’s formative years: truckloads of smoldering infants, a golden tooth torn from a mouth by a rusty spoon, a son leaving his father to die for moldy bread.  The fact that it all springs from real events seared in a young Jewish boy’s impressionable mind make it all the more painful to experience.
             Secondly, though, the sparse, blatant style utilized throughout, truly give Night an awful power. Wiesel writes almost as if he is an unbiased spectator to the tragedies of his own life. It is as if he has no more emotion left to expend. He is a man who has been stripped of all faith, hope and feeling.  There are no adornments. There is very little figurative language. There is only simple desolation.
              And thirdly, perhaps most heartbreaking of all, is the transition exhibited by Wiesel throughout the pages. He sets off as an exuberant Jewish boy, dedicated to the study of the Torah, brimming with zest, hope, and faith. By the close of the final chapter, though, Wiesel is a broken, embittered, faithless man. God is now his enemy. Life is devoid of light. He has become, effectively, “a corpse.” The Holocaust had come and gone, but for Wiesel, it still burned there, in the dusky theatre of his memories and in the vacant gaze drilled into his face.
            After finishing Night, it took me some time to realize why I liked the book, when my peers did not. The content, of course, was impossible to like, and I suppose that was what my fellow students latched on to when they had to give an opinion. But Night was not written to simply bludgeon readers with the personal terrors of the Holocaust. It was written with a purpose, and it is this purpose that makes the book a noble and admirable feat, in my opinion. Wiesel is accredited with saying that “Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” This is why Night was written, and why it is the best book we read in high school. We need books like these, the healthy dose of both truth and tragedy, because human beings are historically notorious for their short-term memories. Genocide is not a new phenomenon; it can be traced back to the beginning of civilization. Why? Because we forget, and because we are not reminded. Night, in the simplest and most distressing terms, reminds. We cannot allow another generation to set sail for their future without being made aware of their fathers’ sins, simply because we are ashamed of the six million skeletons in our closet. The content is unsettling, the story is appalling, but maybe, just maybe, if the students are required to read 109 pages of sheer despair, they will refuse to alienate or scapegoat or torment, and we can be saved another Holocaust. Maybe, my peers will live a life of justice and love and respect for human dignity, because they read the story of Wiesel’s lifelong night. Maybe.
            A teacher once composed a poem on the subject of assigning Wiesel’s Night to a class, and ended the verses with this statement: “No, I cannot teach this book/ I simply want the words/ to burn their comfortable souls/ and leave them scarred for life.” That is why it is the best book we read in high school. Because while Huckleberry Finn’s mighty river and the green light at the end of Gatsby’s dock and Macbeth’s floating dagger will eventually trickle away into the sinkhole of oblivion, the terrible truths of Night cannot, and should not, fade away, because the dignity and reputation of the human race depend on that very fact.